Waiting In The Wings
by Inspirationally Red
Summary: In which Iggy stands amidst the folds of his life, as he waits for Nudge to claim his heart. AU oneshot, no wings.


**Hello one and all! This is my first attempt at this type of oneshot, but I decided to try it out in this style of writing after the positive reviews on my fic Membrane Of Lies (thanks heaps people! :) :)) Just be warned: this fic has some recurring stabs of mature themes, coarse language, alcohol and violence although it might not seem like that at first glance. Just a warning for reader's sakes :)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything. The characters in this fic belong to Maximum Ride, and some aspects of it to Sarah Dessen's Lock And Key. :) **

**-Twinleafe**

**###**

"Iggy, Ig, Iggy!" she laughed, clutching hold of his arm. Hard. "Look! Look, look!"

Drunk after two glasses. A schooner. He shook her off, smiling down at the tangled masses of hair trailing across a freckled oval face. "What's up?"

Tone even, neutral, a cool, clear brook compared to her thick, syrupy honey-voice, gushing over the waterfalls of the others voices around them at their little table in the middle. Flashing lights of the nightclub flinging dizzying disco-light specks onto the walls; wild techno music filling the air, as loud and as brass as heartbeats.

No wonder Nudge was spinning.

"Iggy!" a hiccup, shoulders jerking violently, before her head rose, eyes big and as bright as the disco lights that whirled overhead. "Oh Iggy…" she sighed, voice pale and dreamy. "He's gorgeous isn't he?" His heart lifted, but he had to be sure…

Gently, gently, cautious, be cautious…"I try."

A laugh, a stinging slap on the arm that was meant to be friendly. "No, not you silly! Look!" she pointed, finger straight and definitive across the room towards the blonde. He was laughing, torso twisting under the light, a glass glittering in his fist. Iggy had seen him, sprinting the length of the park with a football under his arm, hanging out by the swing under the tree in the shade as the summer day reached boiling point, with more booze, cigarette smoke curling lazily into dissipating under the canopy, sooty grey smoke floating, floating like ribbons and souring the breeze.

A stoner.

"Baxter," Nudge sang. "Isn't he absolutely adorable?"

A stoner with a pretty face.

He felt his heart sink.

"Yeah," he said thickly, throat constricted, as Nudge laughed and twittered beside him. He took another sip of his beer, suddenly determined to get as drunk and oblivious as possible. "Yeah, he's awesome."

###

Months later. Work was slow. He returned to the white apartment late that night and cooked himself spaghetti, listening to the rumble of night-time traffic on the road outside and the hum of crickets in the garden while smoke and the smell of tomatoes drifted upwards towards the smoke detector, red bubbling in a pan beneath the semi-dark haze.

He tasted it, tried it. Delicious.

Nudge's apartment was right next to his; a wall separated his kitchen from her bedroom. They used to bang on the walls when they had first moved in, at almost the same time, to try and get each other to shut up: him when her sleepovers got too loud, her when the bass beat of his stereo thumped into every last vestige of the house. Once they'd gotten to know each other, it had been quiet taps and noisy rattles on the pipes against the wall: "A secret code," Nudge would giggle whenever they bumped into each other on the stairs and the stack of spy books Iggy had been carrying would fall out of his arms. "Hello again, 007,".

He tasted it again. Still delicious.

But work had caught up and the rattles stopped. He guessed it was because they both had stuff on their minds; he hardly got away from his job at the library and whenever he saw her, she seemed to be up to her slightly pointy ears in paperwork, studying for god knew what, so much Iggy had started calling her "The Busiest Elf" in passing.

Taste. Nice.

The silence was loud; so loud, Iggy could hear the gurgle of pipes in the wall, the buzz of the refrigerator as it digested the cold, the rattle of the stove, staining the wall behind black with soot as the spaghetti Bolognese bubbled on the flame.

And somewhere, just below that, the muted moans coming from Nudge's bedroom just through the wall.

The clink of champagne glasses. A low, deep grumble. Nudge's high, fluting voice, toned down and smitten in a sigh.

"I love you, Baxter."

The spaghetti tasted sour.

###

Her real name was Monique; Monique Cleighton, but everyone called her Nudge. Iggy had asked her, but she'd been called that for so long, she couldn't remember what had started the nickname. But Iggy liked it. It suited her. Nudge, nudge, nudge, look this way, can you see? Whisper, point, nudge again, oh my god, that's my boss, Iggy cover for me _please_. Whisper from behind the shelves in fiction H-M, nudge nudge, cause a stack of books to fall to the floor. Is she gone? Phew, thanks Ig, I owe you one. Dart outside, the sliding doors whirring, leaving him to pick up the fallen books but inside he was smiling, for he knew that was typical trademark Nudge-iness, and he wouldn't trade it in for anything.

Nudge, nudge, look, Iggy, look, isn't he gorgeous?

And Iggy's smile would always fade.

She was always doing that; picking out boys in the street while dodging work, asking him to cover for her, sheltering underneath the red-and-white umbrella of the ice cream parlour while it drizzled down outside and brown eyes strained across the street to catch a glimpse of the black-haired boy walking along opposite.

Nudge, nudge, point, point, omg, he's hot, what would you rate him, Iggy?

Iggy? Are you listening to me?

And he was listening. Mostly. But the better part of that time was spent staring across at whatever boy she was pointing out this time, wondering what it was about him that appealed to Nudge so much. He didn't know if it was anything more than that.

###

Nudge had met Ella, but the two of them had never actually _clicked._ When Iggy got Ella to talk to him about it, she would robustly insist Nudge was too talkative when Nudge had only breathed a few edgily polite sentences during their entire meeting. When Iggy asked Nudge about it, she would wave it off and burst into a spiel about some girls who never pulled their noses out of cliques long enough to concentrate on what was right in front of them, before flouncing off to join her workmate Janice at the pottery wheel.

Needless to say, Iggy had not persisted with this relationship any longer.

Iggy had told Nudge that Ella was his girlfriend, which Nudge would wave aside in that careless way she had. So far, all Ella had been to her was an excuse for her to check out any guy that was in her vicinity.

Oh, forget about that right now Ig, what really matters is, is that guy across the road looking at me? Yikes, I think he is! What, does he really think we're in a relationship or something? That ridiculous, you have a girlfriend, don't you?

It was an excuse for Ella too.

What's up with you, Ig? We were only making out, it wasn't anything serious…

You said yourself I wasn't your girlfriend, so I thought it would be alright to go out with him, but since you obviously disagree…

How can we make this relationship work when you…

Iggy always forgot he had a girlfriend, but that was normal. They weren't exactly together in the strictest sense of the word: that was how he and Ella played it, their relationship switching between friend and not-friend, the elastic balance relying on factors such as how much they'd both had to drink at some interstate catering party Ella got to attend due to her part-time job at catering, if he was in the mood and other things. She disappeared with a guy at a party; he flirted with a girl at the next one, and so on and so on. The trick was to never give more than you expected to lose.

The way Ella looked at it, Iggy was more like her boyfriend stuck on an irritating on-and-off status than an actual partner. His view on it was a game.

A game called I Could Care Less.

###

Nudge nudge, point, whisper, he's extraordinary, that Baxter… sighing over the phone whenever he called her to check how Nudge was doing nowadays. He hadn't seen her in a while.

How's Baxter?

"Oh, Iggy, he's extraordinary. Absolutely extraordinary." She'd sigh over the phone. Iggy would remain resolutely in place, a fixed smile on his face as a solid minute of ramblings about Baxter would broadcast over the phone before the final, inevitable click and the promise that she would call him tomorrow. But he always had to call her first.

The months went by and Nudge and Baxter forever became public.

He's extraordinary. Extraordinary.

As if he hadn't heard. Walking home from work, passing under the shade of Florice&John's Ice Cream Suite to hear old women chattering from the window seats.

"Such a joy, marrying young…"

In bus stops and shelters, the rumours and speculations circulating beneath the tin, echoing and echoing around and around.

"A charming little girl that one is…"

"… don't know about the man, thought. Seemed rather sketchy to me…"

"How pretty was the wedding?"

As weddings go, it had been rather small: a short gathering of Nudge's immediate family, family friends, friends and various relations, all to see as she walked down the aisle with the same bouncing, sunny charm she'd always had, eyes bright and beaming as she clung to the arm of a man who grimaced in the photographs and wore his cummerbund inside out. He hadn't had any relations to show off in _that _particular wedding.

Nudge, nudge, look this way…

"Look at them, nothing good's going to come out of him, you mark my words…"

###

He was coming home from work one day when he saw them.

It was a drizzly, overcast day – why are days always drizzly and overcast nowadays? – and the clouds were rumbling overhead when he saw her.

Ella.

She was standing, flipping her blonde hair excessively over her shoulder as she talked, leaning expressively over the hood of a brown Chevrolet as she talked seriously with a blonde-haired boy opposite her. He recognized the boy; Zephyr, a guy she'd met at a party last week and had offered to go out with. That had started a new series of rows between her and Iggy. He thought he'd seen the last of him, but what if...

Iggy watched from the window seat of the café with a sinking feeling.

Ella leant over. And they kissed.

And Iggy knew, never mind whatever excuse Ella would blurt when he caught up with her, that it was done, over.

I Could Care Less.

###

The days rolled on. The world ended and started again.

Iggy got a new job. He couldn't face working at the library and Ella's info desk anymore. Instead, he worked at a delicatessen. His new boss, Max ("Short for Maximum, not Maxine or I'll kick your ass!") was okay, a little snippy, but okay.

Unfortunately for him just across the road from the park where he could see, every day if he stuck his head up, Baxter and Nudge hanging out, kissing in the sun, like the world hadn't restarted over the weekend.

It left him feeling hollow. Empty. Like the world had forgotten about him.

I Could Care Less. Zephyr. Nudge didn't call him anymore. Baxter. His room in the flat was falling into disrepair.

Ella Could Care Less.

Iggy could care more.

###

It was mid-April when the shoutings started.

Iggy would be lying in bed, trying to get to sleep over the muted roar of the radio from Nudge's place next door, the classical music Baxter never seemed to switch off, when the change in the mood from next door would occur.

The change would be short. Iggy only knew what to expect from sleepless nights. But it was there. The abrupt silence, the slow footsteps. Baxter's voice, harsh and demanding. Nudge answering, meek, a nudge nudge point whisper gone silent, footsteps scurrying across the room. The rustle of paper. A lighter click. Pop goes the wine cork. Puff goes the cigarette.

Baxter's cigarette. Nudge could never smoke.

Up goes the volume of Baxter's screams, and Nudge's pitiful howls, as Iggy lay there, huddled in the dark.

Baxter had moved in five weeks ago; Iggy had seen the brown removalists van crunch up the drive with the rumble of tyres on gravel, had watched through his window as the men set about transporting Baxter's things into Nudge's flat: a vanity, a four-poster bed, a radio, an oak-drawer dresser. He'd stayed in his room as the removalists, cursing and grunting, transported the stuff into her flat, the heavy wood and leather upholstery bumping and knocking on the banisters and stair posts.

He hadn't been there to greet the man himself.

"I-I-Iggy!" howls to a darkened ceiling. "Iggy! Iggy, help me, he's…"

A darker roar. "Shut up you fucking disobedient bitch!"

And now, as he lay there, staring up at the spider web stretching across the corner of his ceiling while the screaming continued next door, he thought it best he hadn't seen the man at all.

Baxter.

The abuser.

That stone-headed, junkie _abuser. _

###

The telephone rang. A single, high-pitched beep.

"Hello, is this Iggy Griffiths speaking?"

Yes…

"Your neighbour's in hospital…she's alive, but in bad shape…"

Shock. Shocked numb. Shocked numb and dumb, even as his mind taunted him with I-told-you-so's and consequences. It had happened. After so many nights, it had happened.

Nudge in hospital. Baxter missing. His car found scratched up in a hedge five miles out of state. Evidence of drug use and abuse found in his room. That's what the policeman said.

Matter of time, it was all a matter of time.

Run Baxter, run Iggy. Ran out of state. Wife rushed to hospital.

"I want to see her."

Even if she hadn't returned his calls, had left the answering machine to fill the room with its disappointed, empty beep, had avoided him, had broke down in floods of tears whenever he asked her what was wrong…

The police, curt yet concerned, clipped yet caring, polar opposite tones "I understand. You shall."

It was worse at the hospital. Doctors flitted around on hushed footsteps, like owls. It was the whisper whisper point point again, but on a much more serious scale.

Nudge, where's Nudge? Panicked, shaken, demanding of the doctors. Nudge? Monique Cleighton – mimicking fated first meetings, nightclubs under disco balls –

Nudge…

Monique –

where is she?

"Severe internal bruising… concussion… X-rays for skull fractures came back negative… You'll have to wait until the doctors…"

The ground buckling underneath him. "I don't want to wait."

A doctor, guiding him by the arm as if it was him in need of medical attention, body so ripped-up and aching it felt surreal. "Of course. You can come. She's been expecting you."

Nudge looked like a baby cradled in her cot, white wires criss-crossing delicate brown skin smeared red. Iggy looked at her and wanted to rip the wires out, wanted more than anything to hug and cradle that thin, fragile body to his chest, to stroke that tousled hair and tell her everything was alright, when it wasn't.

He just wanted her to be okay.

Baxter. That bloody Baxter. Not so extraordinary now, is he? That stone-cold psychopath, the junk-headed…

Nudge stirred, and his heart leapt as big doe-eyes flickered. "Iggy…" she whispered in a voice left him rubbed raw and aching. "Where's Iggy? Iggy Griffiths… my neighbour… I want Iggy."

Machines filled the air with shrill beeping and his heart ached and swelled at the same time, swelled with delight that now, after so many years, she would want him near her again…

"I'm here Nudge," his voice sounded odd; husky and croaky in disbelief and delight. He coughed; cleared his throat and continued in a slightly lower voice, comforting as best he could when he himself was devastated… "I'm always here."

"Iggy…" her voice was faint, whispery, a faint curl of odourless smoke against the wires, big doe eyes looking up at him from the whiteness of the sheets.

"I'd rate you." She whispered, fragile and straining, and he remembered outings from so many years ago, nudge nudge point whisper cover for me Iggy please...

"Ten out of ten."

He didn't know whether to cry, smile or laugh.

**So, how did it go? Good, or not so good? Like I said before, this is only my first attempt at this kind of one-shot, so don't blame me if it's worse than it appears. **

**Anyway… #sniff sniff# Once again, I don't own anything. All #sniff# characters in this fic despite Baxter (grr…that ax-wielding murderer!) belong to Maximum Ride, even Zephyr. Zephyr is an alias used by Gazzy in SO-F. The "I Could Care Less" game belongs to Sarah Dessen's book Lock And Key. **

**Review, please. **

**-Twinleafe**


End file.
